We focus on a variety of free plugins best suited to web and graphic design, to help you work faster and more productively. The plugins can help with a range of functions, including layer control, exporting assets, icon exploration, guides and fonts.

Social Kit provides customizable templates for four of the biggest social networks — Facebook, Google+, Twitter and YouTube — along with a variety of social buttons. Each template is fully sliced and customizable, and the plugin automatically updates when there’s a minor change to the social sites’ designs You can see your design changes in real time, and you can add contributors to projects to help improve it.

Layrs Control is a free plugin that houses a collection of scripts to make the more mundane tasks in Photoshop. It provides five main features, including a layer name editor and options to remove any unused effects, flatten all layer effects, delete empty layers to cut down the file size, and rasterize smart objects.

Cut&Slice lets you export your assets to different devices in seconds, and it improves your workflow by naming your layers. You can cut and export files in PNG format, trimming extraneous pixels or specifying you size you require. Cut&Slice also exports your button states.

Exported files have unsupported characters in the file name removed, with support for .xxdpi, .Idpi, .mdpi and .hdpi. While Photoshop hasn’t changed the way it exports for the web for years, Cut&Slice offers new capabilities, allowing you to create overlapping slices and exporting only what you need with maximum detail.

CSS3Ps is a free cloud-based Photoshop plugin that converts your layers to CSS3. Since it’s based in the cloud, the updates and bug-fixes are transparent, so there’s no need to update the plugin to use new features. It’s easy to use — just select your layers and click the CSS3Ps button, and it directs you to the CSS3Ps webpage where the output is generated.

The plugin features support for vendor prefixes for cross-browser compatibility, SASS and SCSS support, border radius, stroke, gradient overlay, drop shadow, outer glow, and inner glow. You can select multiple layers and groups of layers at once and convert them with one click, with additional support for blending modes, bevel and emboss. It’s worth noting that in order for the plugin to convert appropriately, you need to use the correct Photoshop effects.

BlendMe.in is a plugin for both Photoshop and Illustrator that lets you search thousands of assets (including popular icon packs) that you can simply drag and drop into you canvas and continue work. All the icons are vector format, so they’re inserted as smart objects and are infinitely scalable.

The assets are provided under the Creative Commons Attribution license, so you can use them in your personal and commercial projects. If you wish to have your collection of icons or assets considered, simply email the developer. All you need to do is install it via the extensions manager and you’re ready to start.

The interface sits within the Photoshop panel, so it’s unobtrusive and makes it easy to drag assets onto your canvas.

Renderly will automatically exports screens, assets and detailed design specs, and with its smart technology, only those elements that have changed are exported. All you need to do is use a proper prefix and Render.ly will do the rest.

To keep your icons as vectors, simply add a prefix of “ico.” For buttons, name a group with “btn” and create a state (e.g., add “:hover”) at the end of the name inside that group. To export images, add “img” as a prefix and the image will be exported as a raster graphic. Inside your group, each variant must have a “+” in front of the layer name, and Renderly will automatically export as many screens or variants as you require. Each top level group is treated as a separate screen, so you can design your entire app or website in one PSD file.

Renderly is currently in private beta, but it’s accepting new designers — simply sign up for a chance to preview it.

Dealing with multiple guides in Photoshop can be a pain, but using GuideGuide makes it easy to have pixel-accurate columns, rows, midpoints and baselines based on your document or selection. Your frequently used guide sets can be used for future use, with the ability to use multiple types of measurements.

The plugin works with Photoshop CS5, CS6 and CC and is simple to install. You can also use the plugin to measure exactly how wide a navigation element should be to fit evenly across the width of a site, as well as creating baseline grids and element padding.

Composer lets you update multiple layer comps in Photoshop with a single click, meaning less maintenance and more designing. It works on Photoshop CS5 or higher.

Select any layers or groups to which want to apply changes and use one of the four commands to update the selected layers: Update Layer Style, Update Position, Update Visibility and Update All. The plugin sits inside the Photoshop panel for easy access.

The Web Font plugin lets you design with your desired website fonts from within Photoshop, with access to thousands of web fonts from prestigious foundries. It works in combination with professional font manager Suitcase Fusion 5 and web font service WebINK.

You can preview any font while you’re working on a design, without having to download and install individual fonts to use in Photoshop. If you’ve chosen a font from WebINK, you only pay for the fonts that you use in your final site. It’s important to note, however, that you can’t use fonts purchased from WebINK for derivative work — only as part of the website design process. When new fonts are added, they’re available automatically.

Flaticon is a free project, created for and by designers and developers. It’s home to one of the largest databases of free vector icons, available to download in SVG, PSD or PNG formats. You can also convert icons into web fonts, with all the icons on Flaticon completely scalable and editable, and accessible to any screen reader.

You have instant access to more than 31,000 icons. The database always stays synchronized so you never have to worry about manually updating the icon collection. The plugin has support for Photoshop CS5, CS6 and CC, and it’s compatible with both Windows and Mac OS X.

11. Breeezy

Breeezy is a free plugin that adds multilayer export functionality to Photoshop. This makes it quick and easy to prepare graphics for app development or websites. It features the ability to save a layer’s transparency when exporting, pass layer names to files, and organize all exported files and assets in one folder.

Save Panel is a Photoshop plugin that optimizes file saving, meaning that you can configure the buttons to save documents with your favorite settings. It features the ability to customize the destination folder (either absolute or relative), image dimensions, file type and filename. Using the Save Panel with a service such as Dropbox lets you effectively share images with other people directly from Photoshop.

It’s easy to configure, with no limitations on how many buttons you can create and customize. To set up, simply save presets created in the options dialog — each preset will then be represented with a button on the panel, giving you quick access to your favorite settings.

A Clean, Multipurpose, Responsive Business WordPress Theme with easy customization options one can easily setup a perfect business theme in a few minutes. The striking features of “INVERT” are Easy Custom Admin Options, 3 Custom Page Templates, Parallax Section, Custom Logo, Custom favicon, Social links Setup, SEO Optimized, Call To Action, Featured Text. A package you won’t regret getting for FREE.

Sencha touch is one of the preferred frameworks among the mobile web developers. With its full-featured widget library based on the Ext JS JavaScript library, it targets a group of WebKit browsers. This HTML5 framework is used to develop mobile for multiple mobile OS such as Blackberry OS, iOS, Android and Kindle.

This is one such framework which every mobile developer would vouch for. JQuery develop mobile app UI more confidently across mobile platforms such as Android and iOS. It makes operations easy in touchscreen because of its widget library that converts semantic markup into a user-friendly format. JQuery mobile contain lightweight code base with ample of graphical elements.

You can really enjoy with jQuery theme-able design and light weight code while developing web apps. The HTML5 mobile framework allows the developers to construct cross-platform website and applications.

jQTouch is a JavaScript plugin which works with either Zepto.js or jQuery, and comes with smooth animations, navigation, and themes for mobile WebKit browsers (as found in iOS, Android, BlackBerry, and WebOS).

If you wish to develop apps for Apple and Android as a next-generation mobile platform, you are probably looking for Appcelerator Titanium. It impeccably combines the flexibility of open source with cloud computing. The great advantage with this framework is that the knowledge of the HTML, CSS and JavaScript programming comes in handy while using Appcelerator Titanium. It enables easy integration with mobile device’s cameras and files stored on the device and also help to build tabs, switchers, table views and popovers.

There is a strong community supporting this particular framework and you may find assistance in several forums where mobile developers work on such frameworks.

It is an easy-to-use JavaScript framework that efficiently integrates the progressive features of HTML. The M project is well known for its open source module which is based on MVC that allows developers to separate the data from the business logic. It supports the mobile devices and makes it easy to develop apps and websites for desktops, tablets and Smartphones. Its recent collaboration with Panacoda has helped the framework to expand its features and enhancement.

Zepto.js is created specifically for mobile WebKit browsers such as Chrome and Safari. With its unique minimalist development characteristic it helps developers complete their job easily. Zepto is all about keeping things simple. The goal of this framework is precise and enables easy download and quick execution.

Jo HTML5 mobile app framework allows creating a native –like app experience and aim at developers working on HTML5 capable mobile devices such as Chrome OS platform, Android, WebOS and iOS. It has standard and native-like UI element such as a pop widget for providing additional information whenever a user click on an interface element and web form widgets for the login screen. It can prove to be a real time saver.

The framework is used to create a robust web application that operates on all Smartphones and touch devices. DHTMLX Touch advocates minimal coding and allow developers churn out different types of apps for various mobile platforms.

This JavaScript framework is used for embedded devices such as tablets, mobile phones as well as television. The interesting thing about Embed JS is its multiple builds for platforms and browsers such as Firefox, Android and iOS which translates to an optimal users experience and minimal code to serve the users. However, with Embed JS, the creator can customise their build.

In order to reduce the workload, the developers often seek a framework that can directly transfer desktop-friendly websites into a mobile-friendly platform. Such aim can be accomplished with mobilise.js that automatically detects mobile browsers and integrates them without changing anything on the server.

Xui.js

If you need features for standard development such as event-handling, DOM manipulation or animation effects, check out the super lightweight xui.js. It provides targeted builds for particular mobile browsers such as IE mobile and WebKit when developing apps strictly specific mobile device operating system.

Spine Mobile is a lightweight framework on top of Spine for building mobile JavaScript web applications. What makes Spine Mobile stand out from the competition is attention to detail. User experience comes before all else, and Spine Mobile applications strive for a native feel; they shouldn’t give a discernibly different feel than applications built in Objective C or Java.

iUI is a framework consisting of a JavaScript library, CSS, and images for developing advanced mobile webapps.
Made with only iPhone in mind in the first place (reason of i UI) and now supports most smartphones & tablets.

Wink Toolkit is a lightweight JavaScript toolkit which will help you build great mobile web apps. It is designed and developed to meet the specific constraints of the mobile environment.

The toolkit’s core offers all the basic functionalities a mobile developer would need from touch event handling to DOM manipulation objects or CSS transforms utilities. Additionally, it offers a wide range of UI components to help you improve the look and feel of a web app, or simply to experiment with new user interactions.

WebApp.Net is a light weight, powerful javascript framework taking advantage of AJAX technology. It provides a full set of ready to use components to help you develop, quickly and easily, advanced mobile web applications.

PhoneJS contains everything you’ll need to create native client applications using HTML5 and JavaScript with a single codebase and deliver solutions that target today’s most popular smartphones and tablet devices.

Dojo Mobile is a world class HTML5 mobile JavaScript framework that enables rapid development of mobile web applications with a native look and feel on modern webkit-enabled mobile devices such as iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, Android and RIM smartphones and tablets.

PhoneGap is an open source framework for quickly building cross-platform mobile apps using HTML5, Javascript and CSS.PhoneGap solves this by using standards-based web technologies to bridge web applications and mobile devices. Since PhoneGap apps are standards compliant, they’re future-proofed to work with browsers as they evolve

Mobile JavaScript frameworks are subject to continuous improvement. Hopefully, the above mentioned frameworks will assist you to build your next best mobile app.

You probably have stories in your blog you want to highlight to your readers. This is commonly referred to as “Featured Posts” or “Featured Content”. If you are using WordPress, displaying these featured posts can be achieved in various ways, one of which is using a plugin like Jetpack.click here for more info

the WordPress Plugin checker can find which plugins are installed on almost any WordPress site. Unfortunately, this tool doesn’t list all of the plugins it detects. Instead, it looks to see if any of the plugins developed by Earth People are installed along with the 50 most popular plugins.
Despite having a blank index.php file in place to prevent visitors from seeing a directory listing of the plugins folder, the plugin checker was able to determine that the site was using five of the most popular plugins.